Speeches by McFadden.

“There is a lot in there. Let me try to do do it some justice. This is a bit of a frustrating reply, and I do not mean to be frustrating, but we said the child poverty strategy would be published in the autumn. It would be quite fair for you to say to me, Madam Chair, that when you look outside the leaves are falling an…”

“Technology will help people to some degree, for a limited conversation, and that is available in our smartphones and so on. Peter, what is the English language position in jobcentres at the moment?”

“We could be here all morning with this because I think the idea of contribution as part of the welfare state—we heard reference to it in a statement from the Home Secretary on Monday in a different context—is an interesting and important question. I won’t be here all morning, Madam Chair, don’t worry, but obviously the…”

“What is the phrase? They say, “I’ve paid in all my life”.”

“By working with them. I talked about the two doors. We are already inviting tens of thousands of people to come forward with conversations, some of whom have not been contacted for years. I have visited jobcentres and met some people involved in this. Of course, these are the people who have come forward, so that is a …”

“I think we should look at the programmes and see how they are working for all the reasons we have just been discussing. Evaluation is a constant part of this, and there are risks involved in this. If you go with a number of providers, they will not all work, and some people will say that we wasted money by going with t…”

“I referred to this earlier. First, it is a very important programme. I talked about the two doors into the system and having a more active approach for people who have, for one reason or another, gone through the door marked long-term disability and sickness benefits. I visited the Connect to Work project in Portsmouth…”

“It probably does not need much response from me, but if there is good experience in local government, we should, of course, learn from it. We touched on this elsewhere in different policy areas and skills. I think you make a good point.”

“I am sure he will talk to people across the board. He brings to this a level of curiosity and energy that I think will be a real asset, and I want him to look at this issue of young people, work and opportunity right across the piece. That is important, because if we only look at this Department by Department, with Dep…”

“It has not started yet.”

“I am not ruling anything out. I have only been in the job for three months, and if I start ruling things out it will just close doors in the future, so I am not ruling anything out.”

“The Timms review is an important exercise. We have two co-chairs appointed with Stephen. We are assembling a panel of people from various organisations who represent disabled people or are disabled themselves. I think it will be a really strong group. It is important to signal that the job of the Timms review cannot be…”

“Yes. The fair repayment rate. There is also the increase in the standard rate of universal credit and the discussion that we just had about the difference between standard rates and additional health or disability rates. A number of changes have been made or legislated for so far on universal credit and those should al…”

“That is right. It is looking at a number of different issues in universal credit. For example, the change that was made to the maximum repayment rate, from 25% to 15%, should be considered in that light—”

“We will communicate with you all the time on what we are doing and give you as much clarity as we can, yes.”

“There were a number of changes in July, as the Committee is well aware. It meant we had to re-look at how we were taking these things forward. The Committee will be aware of the establishment of the Timms review. We may come on to that, but he will consider the whole question of PIP, with the other reviewers. There are…”

“I do not think you can say with certainty at the moment. The policy change was to narrow that gap between the UC health payment and the standard payment and to match that with more employment support for those in that group, partly because of the system that I just described and partly because an increasing proportion …”

“For those who do not get jobs, they will get the support that they are entitled to going forward, just like anybody else in the benefit system.”

“Alongside that change, which is an important change, will come—to go back to Ms Ali’s question—more employment support for that particular group. Why did we go down this road? The system that we inherited had basically two doors. You go through one door and you are in the intensive work support group where you have you…”

“It is a good question. I know, Ms Ali, that you have a background in mentoring and mentoring programmes, and we fund some of that in the Department. The question of networks and social confidence is important for young people, because sometimes people just cannot have the experiences that would open their eyes to oppor…”